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The optimists among us who believe in the inevitable progress of man, either forget or ignore the fact that the twentieth century was the bloodiest, most destructive century in human history. The century’s two world wars resulted in the deaths of at least 60 million people.
Nov 5, 2006 · November 5, 2006 at 12:00 a.m. EST. The 20th century was the bloodiest in history. By now, the destruction is generally acknowledged, but the causes of the century's murderous conflicts are...
- James F. Hoge Jr.
Was the 20th century the most violent century in human history in terms of human life lost as a direct result of conflict, genocide? I'm particularly thinking about the appalling number of lives lost during World War I, the Armenian genocide (I'm hesitant to call it that as many will dispute the validity of the event) Stalin and his 5 year plan ...
- The Witch
- 12 Years A Slave
- Lincoln
- Free State of Jones
- Midnight in Paris
- Selma
- Hidden Figures
- Spotlight
- The Big Short
- 13th
Was colonial New England this frightening? Director Robert Eggers dares anyone to leave for North America with this horrifying tale of a Puritan family exiled from Plymouth Colony. The Witchis a slow-burn contemplation on the centrality of religion and the fear of damnation in 17th-century lives and a jarring one at that. It looks and sounds beauti...
This compelling adaptation of Solomon Northup’s 1853 memoir of the same name portrays the kidnapping of a free black man from New York who is then sold into slavery on a Louisiana plantation. Solomon, heartfully portrayed by Chiwetel Ejiofor, becomes witness for the audience to see first-hand the horrors of chattel slavery. The film unflinchingly c...
Contemporary audiences may consider that the 13th Amendment’s passage was inevitable in the twilight of the American Civil War. Lincoln shows us this was not so. Adapted largely from Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, the movie chronicles the maneuvers of the president and his administration to end slave...
Interested moviegoers are not bereft of films focused on the Civil War—this year’s superb Harriet, for instance, finally gave the Underground Railroad operator her cinematic due—but films that tie the war, Reconstruction, and the mid-20th century together number about one. Free State of Jones flailed at the box office, but don’t let that deter you ...
At what point do history and nostalgia cross the line? How does one complicate the other? The 2011 romantic comedy, featuring a spellbinding cast, seeks to answer these queries. Owen Wilson’s screenwriter Gil crosses into 1920s Paris one night where he meets his muse, Adriana (Marion Cotillard). Along the way they encounter Adriana’s American ex-pa...
Ava DuVernay’s first entry on this list follows civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. in the months leading up to the iconic 1965 Selma to Montgomery March. DuVernay asks us not to know not only King but to know the Civil Rights Movement through King. Selma is at the same time the story of a man and his community and that of a movement strivi...
Hidden Figures proved a hit upon its release late in 2016, racking up more than $230 million at the box office. The film chronicles three African-American women, who beginning in 1961 challenged racism and sexism at NASA to assert their positions within the agency. Based on a book of the same name by Margot Lee Shetterly, Hidden Figures spotlights ...
“It’s time, Robbie! It’s time! They knew and they let it happen! To KIDS!” implores Mark Ruffalo as journalist Mike Rezendes to Michael Keaton’s Robby Robinson, his editor, in Spotlight. What begins as a Boston Globeinvestigation into a single priest’s sexual assaults against children soon balloons into an exposé about widespread abuse within the B...
Unless you are 5 years old or so, reading this at home or at work, you have lived through the worst financial depression since 1929. Director Adam McKay, working from a book by journalist Michael Lewis, manages to chronicle the downfall of the American mortgage market via a combination of humor and bewilderment. Several films emerged about the econ...
The heart of superb, historical film may always be the documentary. DuVernay’s 13th is a powerful dissection of race, class, law, and power in the years following slavery’s abolition. Drawing upon commentary from activists and scholars such as Angela Davis, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Van Jones, Kevin Gannon, Michelle Alexander, Khalil Muhammad, and ot...
- Hugh Grant Goes for a Very Expensive $50 Drive Down Sunset Boulevard. When Hugh Grant went on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno on July 10, 1995, to promote Nine Month s, the host opened the interview with one of the most famous questions in talk-show history: “What the hell were you thinking?”
- Will Smith Turns Down ‘The Matrix’ and ‘Django Unchained’ By the end of the Nineties, Will Smith was one of the biggest stars in Hollywood. His name on a poster alone could nearly guarantee that a movie would be a hit.
- Michael Bay Decides He’s the Man to Tell the Story of Pearl Harbor. In hindsight, turning the story of Pearl Harbor into a Michael Bay-directed love story starring Ben Affleck, Josh Hartnett, and Kate Beckinsale seems like a truly crazy decision.
- ‘Ernest Goes to Africa.’ Need We Say More? Jim Varney’s childlike Ernest P. Worrell character visited many places throughout his decade-long run of movies.
Nov 20, 2020 · At a time when normalcy has routinely backflipped into a pool of insanity, “The Twentieth Century” makes perfectly perverse sense. Now playing in virtual cinemas. Drama
Mar 12, 2022 · RELATED: 10 Most Rewatchable John Wayne Movies, Ranked. The Quiet Man is a quiet, reserved break for Wayne's large fan base as it turns the focus from conquering the wild west to love and peace ...
